Richard Kinnell was an author of horror fiction, including the novels Nightmare City and The Departing. He is the ex-husband of Sally Kinnell, whom he met at the 1978 World Fantasy Convention. Returning from a writers conference in Boston, Kinnell stopped at a yardsale in Rosewood, Massachusetts where he bought the last surviving painting by Bobby Hastings – the Road Virus Heads North – from Judy Diment. In the TNT miniseries episode, Kinnell was played by Tom Berenger.